As a parent of an applying Scholar considering SJC for next year, I can't say I'm pleased to hear this. I mean, for one sports team to have more recruits than the Scholars program seems wrong for a school. Fine for a sports club, of course, but wrong for an academic institution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't this end up dumbing down the curriculum?

Why do you assume student athletes are dumb?

Because most are. There are a minority of students who are strong academic performers, but that is extremely rare.

What’s your source for this? “Dumb jock” is a stereotype. Most of the kids, football included, I know who are top athletes are also great students. They have tight schedules and focus their time around those schedules.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Follow back up after next week when decisions come out. I know plenty of kids that applied that aren’t athletes.

ICYMI:

They obviously need the non-athletes to pay full tuition so the athletes get a full ride. (You can probably guess which athletes get a full ride and which don’t.)

My kid is a football recruit and we assume is full play (we didn’t apply for FA). We know some other recruits in the same position. Not sure what your premise is, but whatever it is, you are wrong.

I have multiple kids at SJC. They play a variety of sports. None of the other sports teams like the football team. They destroy the locker rooms, behave poorly, trash oyher teams gear, and get all sorts of perks (meal cards, new uniforms, etc) that other teams don’t. This is disappointing news.

Anonymous wrote:Follow back up after next week when decisions come out. I know plenty of kids that applied that aren’t athletes.

ICYMI:

They obviously need the non-athletes to pay full tuition so the athletes get a full ride. (You can probably guess which athletes get a full ride and which don’t.)

Anonymous wrote:This is absolutely happening. They started the process by reaching out to local kids who were the top players on their teams, in an effort to get them to transfer. They would even take a senior transfer, like Bullis and Prep do for football.
I will be curious to see who they end up getting to come over.

The word is that a number of Good Counsel players have already committed.

Anonymous wrote:So this likely means that current JV players will have very little chance of making Varsity in the future?

I’m guessing this will be a multi year process. There is a ton of competition for top football talent in this area and SJC definitely is not on the top of that list.

They were barely a factor in their conference this year so I’d say they are far off from fielding a competitive national team right away

Anonymous wrote:So this likely means that current JV players will have very little chance of making Varsity in the future?

That’s not what that means, no.

This is absolutely happening. They started the process by reaching out to local kids who were the top players on their teams, in an effort to get them to transfer. They would even take a senior transfer, like Bullis and Prep do for football.
I will be curious to see who they end up getting to come over.

So this likely means that current JV players will have very little chance of making Varsity in the future?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't this end up dumbing down the curriculum?

Why do you assume student athletes are dumb?

Because most are. There are a minority of students who are strong academic performers, but that is extremely rare.

Show your work. This varies a ton both by school and by sport (I coach a sport that habitually attracts high academic performers no matter the school), and at the end of the day athletes are largely reflective of the overall student body.

Wait OP-- you think there will be 70 recruits for football? You do know that all the private schools recruit for football and have for years? There are a plenty of local kids who are extremely talented at football and lots of sports in this area. Sure some move to attend a local school but those kids are rare. Also having had kids at both SJC and GZ there are quite a few 5 star recruits over the last few years who were kicked out of both school due to academics.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it impacts admissions.
I impacts school culture.
There is a 2 tiered system at SJC. The athletes and the others.

This hasn’t been our experience. SJC seems to put as much or more effort into its Cadet Corps and Scholars. Sure, there was alot of attention on the football team during fall sports, but not anymore now. The sports emphasized now are basketball, track, tennis… spring sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard the football team is moving to a National and Regional team model for the upcoming season with the expectation that over 70 new players will be enrolled. How does this affect admissions numbers for 2026? How does this affect others sports at the school and admissions going forward?

Where did you hear this, OP? What’s your source?

The source is correct. There was an event for football recruits this week and they shared the information about the second varsity team. I estimated there were around 35 kids there.

Anonymous wrote:I've heard the football team is moving to a National and Regional team model for the upcoming season with the expectation that over 70 new players will be enrolled. How does this affect admissions numbers for 2026? How does this affect others sports at the school and admissions going forward?

Where did you hear this, OP? What’s your source?